Book contents
- Reconstructing the Corporation
- Reconstructing the Corporation
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Preference Aggregation in Political Institutions
- 3 Preference Aggregation in Corporations
- 4 The Corporation as Contract
- 5 Shareholder Homogeneity
- 6 The Argument from the Residual
- 7 The Argument from Arrow’s Theorem
- 8 The Shareholder Franchise and Board Primacy
- 9 A Firm-Based Approach to Corporate Voting Rights
- 10 Democratic Participation and Shared Governance
- 11 The German Codetermination Experience
- 12 Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
7 - The Argument from Arrow’s Theorem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2021
- Reconstructing the Corporation
- Reconstructing the Corporation
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Preference Aggregation in Political Institutions
- 3 Preference Aggregation in Corporations
- 4 The Corporation as Contract
- 5 Shareholder Homogeneity
- 6 The Argument from the Residual
- 7 The Argument from Arrow’s Theorem
- 8 The Shareholder Franchise and Board Primacy
- 9 A Firm-Based Approach to Corporate Voting Rights
- 10 Democratic Participation and Shared Governance
- 11 The German Codetermination Experience
- 12 Conclusion
- Notes
- Index
Summary
This chapter critically examines the argument that Arrow’s theorem supports giving the corporate vote to shareholders alone. We begin by laying out the argument and distinguish it from two, related arguments: the argument from politics and the argument for absolute delegation. We then show that the Arrow’s theorem argument is flawed on many fronts. Shareholder preferences are not, as supposed, homogeneous. Even if they were homogeneous, they would not translate into the kind of agreement on board candidates necessary to avoid intransitive corporate election results. Finally, restricting voting rights to shareholders gives up a fundamental condition of democracy in a situation where the likelihood and impact of intransitive results are already negligible.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reconstructing the CorporationFrom Shareholder Primacy to Shared Governance, pp. 103 - 121Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021